MARSH TITMOUSE 
69 
seem to imply. But it is fond, among other trees, 
of the willows and alders which grow along the 
banks of streams, and often nests in some hole 
in them. It is distinctly scarcer, on the whole, 
than the last three species or the next ; but in 
some districts it is found more commonly than 
the Cole Tit, which it much resembles. Its chief 
points of resemblance to and difference from that 
species have been described under the previous 
heading, and there is no need to detail them afresh. 
It chooses the same sites for its nest, though it 
sometimes excavates a hole for itself in rotten 
wood, instead of relying always on finding one, and 
builds it of the same materials ; the eggs, too, are 
practically indistinguishable. The Marsh Tit 
seems, however, to have been endowed with a 
rather less full share of the true Titmouse character 
and spirit than the other members of the family ; 
it always appears a trifle less overflowing with 
energy than the others, there is something a shade 
less self-assertive in the way it carries its head, and 
it does not seem to exhibit quite to the same 
degree an exuberant preference for an attitude 
upside down on a branch to any other which can 
be chosen. 
